Together with the publication of Vincent van Gogh: Ever Yours. The Essential Letters, now makes the ultimate selection from the correspondence of Vincent van Gogh available to the general public. The festive presentation of the book took place in the Van Gogh Museum. Writer Frank Westerman (author of books including Stikvallei) explained how Van Gogh’s letters were the determining factor in his decision to become a writer.

As well as being a ground-breaking artist, Vincent van Gogh was also a prolific writer. The hundreds of letters that he wrote to his brother Theo and to artist friends such as Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard form a continual commentary on his life and artistry. Writing also helped him to develop his ideas: writing as a form of thinking, about art, about life, about painting technique and artistic ambitions. About perpetual struggle and limited success, about doubt and illness. Without exaggeration, Van Gogh’s letters can be described as the most compelling artist’s correspondence in world literature.

This ultimate selection of the 265 finest letters was compiled by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker compiled. Employees of the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute, they were previously responsible for the successful and acclaimed six-part publication of all Vincent Van Gogh’s letters in 2009.

Van Gogh’s observational skill and his keen analyses of people and circumstances are coupled with a strong feel for language and striking formulations. It has been said that he could have been a writer if he had not become an artist. His prose is not aimed at creating an effect, but is straight from the heart making it extremely moving. Every letter contains an argument, a point, an objective; to Van Gogh, being noncommittal was a crime and as in his art, something is always at stake in his writings.

“There is scarcely one letter by Van Gogh which I do not find fascinating” W.H. Auden